


these vagabond shoes

by endquestionmark



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so, joan watson.</p>
<p>new york born, bred, wed, and dead, she once heard a woman say on the subway.  it was one of those conversations that crop up out of nowhere when it’s nearly summer and the air conditioning in the subway cars isn’t on yet; there was sweat sticking her shirt to her back; the heat was stifling in the packed car.  it’s an interesting turn of phrase and she remembers it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these vagabond shoes

so, joan watson.

__new york born, bred, wed, and dead_ _ , she once heard a woman say on the subway.  it was one of those conversations that crop up out of nowhere when it’s nearly summer and the air conditioning in the subway cars isn’t on yet; there was sweat sticking her shirt to her back; the heat was stifling in the packed car.  it’s an interesting turn of phrase and she remembers it.

++

__born_ _  - well, of course, she was born to this city, that’s how she knows it so well, isn’t it?  holmes might be able to look at the city and see how it ticks but she knows  __why_ _ , and he digs and digs for answers, clawing his hands bloody, getting wrist-deep in the flow of the city, its arteries, its lights, and maybe he’ll get close one day, but until then she knows the hum of the subways like the vague rhythm of her own heart, knows the traffic flows like a systole, diastole, thumping heartbeat.  she’s in the city and the city’s in her, filling her skin, shining through her eyes, and when he looks at her he sees it, and sometimes she can’t tell which one he’s looking at, and sometimes she can’t tell which one she is.

++

__bred_ _  - well, not really.  her parents came here, as so many did, for a better life, and almost found it; her mother teaches, her english nearly perfect now, and her father taught himself another language, taught himself how computers think, and then english on top of that, though he learned to code first, and sometimes she thinks he’s more comfortable with his variables, his functions.  she still comes home for christmas -  __what_ _ , she says,  __we celebrate it_ _ ,  __why wouldn’t we?_ _  - and her mother steams a bass, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, slips a broad serving spoon under the operculum -  __tender cheek meat_ _ , she says - and always gives it to joan, the way she’s always done, and her father makes a toast, and.  they sit and talk, about where they’re from, what they’re doing, where they’re going, and if that isn’t bred, maybe, then what is?

++

__wed_ _  -  __over my dead body,_ _ joan says, laughing, and her mother sighs and says  __i don’t want to die without grandchildren_ _ , and joan feels strangely guilty, because.  because.  her mother and father gave up their lives for her, and - but no, she smiles, a little sadly, and says  __i haven’t found the right person yet_ _ , and her mother smiles,  __don’t rush it, that’s how i ended up with him_ _ , and her father squawks in mock outrage and claps a hand to his heart and that’s it for the year, or the month, at least.  maybe joan married the city.  maybe she married holmes and they just don’t know it.  maybe.

++

__dead_ _  - joan knows death, knows it in all the hundred thousand ways it can happen, knows the hundred thousand ways to turn it back, knows the hundred thousand ways it cannot be stopped; having met holmes, she knows a hundred thousand more, sees it every day, still sees it in the mirror.  on the days when she looks in the mirror and sees a stark white face, bloodless, the towels behind her on the rail the blue-green of scrubs, the morning sun in the mirror the blinding operating room lights, she comes out of the bathroom and holmes looks at her just a little longer, but does he see the city?  does he see the skull beneath her skin, the red taillights of traffic, the click of turnstiles, the rivers of traffic and people and, of course, water?   __born, bred, wed, and dead_ _ , she thinks, and when she steps out the door with holmes - the how and the why, here, now, so.  is that such a terrible thing?

 

**Author's Note:**

> No, I really can't be arsed to add capitals. This was [written in lowercase](http://endquestionmark.tumblr.com/post/24100171670/snakeslide-asked-joan-watson-because-awesomeness) and so it stays.


End file.
